SOS Forests

Congress Questions USFS About Station Fire Response

A congressional panel questioned USFS and interagency fire officials yesterday regarding the delay of aerial tankers during the Station Fire [here, here, here]

Station fire’s lost ‘window of opportunity’ recounted

By Paul Pringle, Los Angeles Times, October 13, 2010 [here]

Under intense questioning by House members, the former U.S. Forest Service commander who led the initial attack on last year’s Station fire conceded Tuesday that a “window of opportunity” to contain the flames was lost when aircraft arrived two hours late on the critical second morning of the blaze.

Members of the bipartisan congressional panel spent much of the four-hour-plus session in Pasadena grilling the now-retired commander and current Forest Service officials about the response to the fire, sometimes expressing frustration that they were not getting the full story.

“I have a feeling we’re not being told what happened,” Rep. Brad Sherman (D- Sherman Oaks) said after posing numerous questions about why the Forest Service did not fill an order for air tankers that would have hit the fire at 7 a.m. on Aug. 27, 2009, when it was still small. …

Will Spyrison, the then-division chief who oversaw the operation on the second morning, said before a standing-room-only, often boisterous audience Tuesday that he made several calls for the air tankers between about 12:30 and 3:25 a.m. and was never told that they would not arrive until two hours after he needed them.

“I knew if I didn’t have the aircraft at 7 o’clock in the morning, there’s a very short window of time … between 7 and 9 a.m. was that window of opportunity to make a difference,” said Spyrison, whose account had not been made public before. …

[Rep. Adam Schiff (D- Burbank)] called for the House inquiry after The Times reported last year that Forest Service officials misjudged the threat presented by the fire, rolled back their attack at the end of the first day and failed to promptly fill the aircraft orders. Also on the panel, which convened at the U.S. Court of Appeals Building, were Reps. David Dreier (R-San Dimas) and Judy Chu (D-Monterey Park). …

To loud applause, L.A. County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich suggested that the county Fire Department become the lead agency for fires in the Angeles National Forest.

Duncan Baird, a retired Pasadena Fire Department battalion chief, said he and other Big Tujunga Canyon residents lost their homes because, later in the fight, the Forest Service and county Fire Department decided not to defend the area as part of a strategy to avoid directly attacking the blaze in the backcountry. “It seems that our enclave of homes may have therefore been sacrificed,” he said.

Baird said he agreed with John Tripp, the county Fire Department’s chief deputy, that the fire eventually became too fierce to confront safely, but he said retardant dumps in the first days of the blaze could have slowed the flames. … [more]

In September, 2009, the Station Fire ignited in the Angeles National Forest, burned 160,600 acres, and destroyed 90 homes. Two Los Angeles County firefighters were fatally injured during the fire. The Station Fire was the largest fire in LA County history, cost nearly $100 million in suppression expenses alone, and inflicted economic damages of 10 to 50 times that amount.

Last December two dozen “retired officials”, among them former Forest Supervisors, Regional Foresters, Deputy Chiefs, and Special Agents, contacted USFS Chief Tom Tidwell and Region 5 Regional Forester Randy Moore and requested a more comprehensive review of the Station Fire.

That effort ultimately resulted in the meeting yesterday. The Government Accounting Office (GAO) is also investigating. The retired officials are also engaged in further efforts to review the procedures followed and recommend improvements.

One of those retired officials is William A. Derr, former USFS Special Agent in Charge of the Law Enforcement and Investigative Program in California. His testimony to the Schiff Panel yesterday is [here]. In addition to raising key questions regarding the delay in aerial attack and the possible reasons for it, Mr. Derr noted:

The Forest and Incident Management Team’s “major objective of allowing the fire to move up into the Forest and wilderness areas” resulted in unacceptable damage to the critical watersheds of the Los Angeles basin and caused significant property loss, harm to recreational facilities and the loss of outdoor enjoyment opportunities to millions of forest users.

Los Angeles has a brush fire problem and everybody knows it. However, the USFS is handicapped by lawsuits (and internal problems) and has not been able to implement an effective landscape-scale fuel management program in any Southern California national forest.

So they are doing Let It Burn instead. But Let It Burn fires do not reduce the fire hazard so much as actualize it.

Residents of affected watersheds have ample reason to be concerned about federal fire and land management. The Station Fire is only one of numerous disasters in the last few years that have arisen from the generally poor job our federal land and fire agencies are doing.